Women hit hard by council job cuts

Story published in Women's Views on News, March 29, 2012
Over two thirds of the 200,000 people who have lost jobs in English and Welsh local authorities since the last election are women, according to research by the GMB union.

According to the research, which is based on government figures, 146,690 women lost jobs in local government between June 2010 and December 2011, 68 per cent of the 210,470 jobs lost overall.

In some regions, such as the south east, women accounted for over three-quarters of the jobs lost, and in some councils like Slough, the number of women who lost their jobs exceeded the number of jobs lost overall.

But a spokeswoman for Slough Borough Council said: “The majority of the people working here are women.

“All our corporate directors, bar one, are women, our chief executive is a woman, all our policy team are women.”

Kamaljeet Jandu, GMB national officer for equalities, said the drop was entirely predictable because the public sector employed more women than men.

According to the Local Government Association, 75.8 per cent of all local government workers are women, and whilst male employment in councils fell by ten per cent between December 2010 and December 2011, 6.8 per cent of female workers lost their jobs.

Jandu said the drop in the number of women employed in the public sector represents a serious loss of income for their families.

“Many households depend on having income from two wage earners to pay the mortgage and the household bills.

“The impact will be even worse in the quarter of households with children that are headed by lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women,” he said.

Women and girls jailed for fleeing abuse in Afghanistan

Story published in Womens Views on News, March 29, 2012

Human Rights Watch is calling on the Afghan government to release over 400 women it says have been imprisoned for ‘moral crimes’ like fleeing a forced marriage or domestic violence, or zina, sex outside of marriage,

The charity released a report yesterday called ”I had to run away“, which was conducted with 58 women and girls arrested for ‘moral crimes’ and jailed in three prisons and three juvenile detention facilities in Afghanistan.

The authors estimate that almost all girls and over half of women in prison in Afghanistan have been accused of ‘moral crimes’.

“It is shocking that 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, women and girls are still imprisoned for running away from domestic violence or forced marriage,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

“No one should be locked up for fleeing a dangerous situation even if it’s at home. President Karzai and Afghanistan’s allies should act decisively to end this abusive and discriminatory practice.”

Human Rights Watch says Afghan women face a justice system stacked against them.

They say that while running away, or fleeing home without permission, is not a crime under the Afghan criminal code, the Afghan Supreme Court has instructed its judges to treat women and girls who flee as criminals.

And while domestic violence was outlawed in 2009, police arrest women solely on a complaint of a husband or relative.

Prosecutors ignore evidence that supports women’s assertions of innocence. Judges often convict solely on the basis of “confessions” given in the absence of lawyers and “signed” without having been read to women who cannot read or write.

After conviction, women routinely face long prison sentences, in some cases more than 10 years.

Arabic divorce laws make the situation worse, as a man can simply declare himself divorced, but for a woman the process is much more difficult.

“Courts send women to prison for dubious ‘crimes’ while the real criminals – their abusers –walk free,” Roth said.

“Even the most horrific abuses suffered by women seem to elicit nothing more than a shrug from prosecutors, despite laws criminalizing violence against women.”

This sends a clear message to others enduring abuse that seeking help from the government is likely to result in punishment, not rescue

“The Afghan government and its international partners should act urgently to protect women’s rights and to ensure there is no backsliding,”  said Roth.

“President Karzai, the United States, and others should finally make good on the bold promises they made to Afghan women a decade ago by ending imprisonment for ‘moral crimes,’ and actually implementing their stated commitment to support women’s rights,” he said.

Republicans try to block extension of services for victims of domestic violence

Story published on Womens Views on News, March 15, 2012

A new row over women’s rights threatens to engulf the US legislature - this time it’s about domestic violence.

Democratic Senate members are pushing to extend the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, so that it extends funding to reach Indian tribes and rural areas.

It would increase the availability of free legal assistance, extend the definition of violence against women to include stalking, provide training for court staff to deal with families with a history of violence and extend programmes to cover those in same sex relationships.

It would also allow more illegal immigrantMurkowskis who are victims of domestic violence to claim temporary visas, and would include same-sex couples in programs for domestic violence.

Yet Republicans accuse the Democrats of using domestic violence to extend immigration rights and say there are not enough safeguards to ensure that funding is well spent.

They also claim that extending protection to groups like same sex couples dilutes the focus on domestic violence.

Some believe the Democrats are using the bill to score political points.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama told the New York Times: “I favour the Violence Against Women Act and have supported it at various points over the years, but there are matters put on that bill that almost seem to invite opposition.”

But at a private Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska reportedly warned her colleagues that the party was at risk of being painted as anti woman — which could spell disaster for the elections this autumn.

The row follows recent moves by Republican-controlled states like Virginia and Ohio to force women seeking abortion to undergo an abdominal ultrasound and, in the case of Ohio, to deny the procedure when a heartbeat was detected. 

Republicans in the Senate also tried unsuccessfully to block a measure by the Obama administration, to stop employers and insurance companies refusing to cover contraceptives and other items they object to on religious or moral grounds.

One in seven UK women expects to be financially dependent on partner in old age

Story published on Womens Views on News, March 15, 2012

One in seven women in the UK expects to have to rely on her partner for her income in retirement, according to new research.

Fourteen per cent of women who responded to an online poll, commissioned by financial services website unbiased.co.uk, said they expected to have to rely on their partners for money when they retired, compared to five per cent of men.

The survey also found that only 41 per cent of women had private pensions, compared with 54 per cent of men.

The findings come as little surprise as new jobless figures show women continue to be disproportionately hit by unemployment.

According to the latest Labour Force survey figures released on Wednesday, the number of unemployed people in Britain rose by 28,000 between November 2011 and January 2012 – 23,000 of them, 82 per cent were women.

New campaign to help 'forced out' young Londoners

Story published in BlottR, March 10, 2012

A campaign will launch next month to support young Londoners 'forced out' due to rising rents and benefit cuts.

Youth Fight for Jobs and Education is calling for more council housing, affordable rents, low interest mortgages and mortgage holders to be able to transfer back to affordable rents if they fall into arrears.

Since January Local Housing Allowance, a benefit paid to those on low incomes or out of work benefits living in private rented housing, will only cover the cost of a room in a shared house for single claimants under 35 years.

Previously, claimants under 25 could claim the cost of one bedroom flat.

Last Autumn London councils estimated that nearly 200,000 unemployed households would be unable to afford their rent when changes to Local Housing Allowance and other benefits were implemented.

Figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government on Thursday, showed the number of households accepted as homeless by London boroughs between October and December 2011 was 27 per cent higher than at the same time in 2010.

The number of rough sleepers in London has also risen by nearly 8 per cent, and last month Westminster

Council admitted that 1,540 primary school children and their families could be forced to move out because of the changes.

Last year average rents in London rose by 6.3 per cent, according to LSL Property Services.

But Housing Minister Grant Shapps said the increase in homelessness was due to a ‘debt laden’ economy, inherited from the previous Labour government, and that an extra £70m had been made available to councils to help homeless people.

The government aims to save £2bn on Local Housing Allowance by 2016. It has made an extra £10m available to councils to ease the transition this year.

Young Londoners Forced Out will be launched at a meeting at the University of London Union, Malet St, at 7.00 pm on Tuesday, April 17.

Art, craft and street food will breathe new life into Walthamstow Market

Story published in BlottR, March 5, 2012

Waltham Forest Council is looking for artists, antique dealers, street food sellers, purveyors of upcycled goods, anyone with a new and different idea, for a new street market in Walthamstow this spring.

‘Saturdays at St James’ Street’ will start on March 31, and the council hopes it will breathe new life into the western end of Europe’s biggest street market.

The stalls will be free for the first three months and half-price thereafter.

The council has commissioned architect firm Gort Scott to run a competition to find the best quality traders, similar to the one recently organised to find tenants for the Wood Street Market.

“Rather than just find stalls that will come and go, we are looking for a core group of traders to get in at the beginning, become founding members and work with us to help the market grow.

“It will be these regular stall holders that will give the market its character and make it the destination for a substantial part of locals’ weekly shopping,” said Competition Co-ordinator Mellis Haward.

Haward said they had received great feedback about Wood Street since it re-opened in mid-February, and boasts a florist, a furniture upholsterer, a pottery, art gallery and bakery.

The St Jame’s Street market stalls were launched just last week, but Haward said interest was growing.

“I went to a couple of food markets and had a really good response from traders who don’t have a Saturday pitch and who are interested in Walthamstow,” she said.

To apply for a stall, please go to: http://walthamstowmarket.com/

The closing date for applications is March 12, 2012.

Bangladesh open cast mine threatens fundamental human rights, warns UN

Story published in Womens Views on News March 5, 2012

The United Nations has warned the Government of Bangladesh that a planned open cast mine will threaten the fundamental human rights of people living in the area.

The mine is planned for the Phulbari region of North-Western Bangladesh.

Last month, WVoN reported on a campaign to halt the development of the massive mine and a coal fired power station, which could displace up to a quarter of a million rural people.

The mine would reportedly extract 572 million tonnes of coal over the next 36 years from a site covering nearly 6,000 hectares.  The project would destroy 12,000 hectres overall, 80 per cent of which is fertile agricultural land.

Opponents also claim the project could cause irrevocable damage to the Sunderbans, one of the world’s largest mangrove forests, as the mined coal would be transported through the area before being exported.

The UN statement, issued on behalf of seven independent human rights experts, comes after US-based human rights group International Accountability Project submitted an urgent appeal for action to ten UN human rights experts in September 2011.

The statement said: “The Government of Bangladesh must ensure that any policy concerning open-pit coal mining includes robust safeguards to protect human rights.

“In the interim, the Phulbari coal mine should not be allowed to proceed, because of the massive disruptions it is expected to cause.”

The statement confirmed opponents’ fears that the Phulbari development would displace vulnerable farming communities and threaten the livelihoods of thousands more by causing irreversible damage to water sources and ecosystems in the region.

The experts were concerned that a national coal policy, currently being discussed by a parliamentary committee in Bangladesh, might allow open-pit coal mining and therefore allow the Phulbari project to go ahead.

“We welcome Prime Minister Hasina’s acknowledgement that coal extraction in Bangladesh would threaten densely populated areas.

“Mixed messages, however, are emerging and investors continue to push forward,” the experts warned.

Speaking to WVoN, Rumana Hashem, one of the leaders of the campaign against the mine in the UK, welcomed the statement and hoped the Bangladesh Government would take the findings seriously.

Kate Hoshour, senior research fellow, at International Accountability Project, added: “We are extremely pleased to learn that seven UN experts took coordinated action this week by calling for an immediate halt to the project, and are hopeful that their action will avert a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe in Bangladesh.”

Factory girls – powering the industrialisation of China

Story published on Women's Views on News, February 20, 2012

They are part of the largest migration in human history.

Young women are pouring into China’s cities from the countryside and powering the race towards industrialisation.

And in her book Factory Girls, Leslie T Chang finds out what drives them.

Twenty-five years ago, the idea of a young women ‘going out’, leaving the village and travelling thousands of miles to work in a large city, would have brought shame on the family. Now it is shameful not to go.

Boredom not starvation is emptying the villages of young people. “There was nothing to do at home so I went out,” they say.

They want to see the world. They want to learn new skills.

Going out is hard. Migrant workers may be the rural elite, but in the cities they are the lowest rank.

Many work over 50 hours a week for 50 to 80 dollars a month. “Get hurt, sick or pregnant and you’re on your own.”

But it is also an adventure. The breakneck pace of economic development creates opportunities.

The young women we meet in the book live in Dongguan, a large city in southern China, which opened its first factory in 1978 and now makes 30 per cent of the world’s disk drives. Over the past two decades economic growth has averaged 15 per cent a year.

No-one is quite sure how many people live there. The government estimates in the region of 1.7m residents and seven million migrants, 70 per cent of whom are women.

Many plants, like the city-factory of Yue Yuen, which makes trainers, employ mainly migrants, and it is possible to live for months in Dongguan without meeting a single resident.

A worker hired by Yue Yuen may never work anywhere else and many spend their days without venturing outside. The factory has its own shops, a hospital and even a water bottling plant.

The girls sleep ten to a dormitory. Only line leaders and above are allowed to live inside the factory with a child.

The workers have had to speed up to accommodate the accelerated pace of the global fashion cycle. In 2007 it took ten hours to make a pair of trainers. Four years earlier it had taken 25 days.

Living arrangements have been reshuffled, so the girls no longer share dorms with their friends but with colleagues on the production line. “Only the strongest survive.”

The girls have to work fast. Jobs are divided strictly along gender lines. Discrimination is ubiquitous.
Few factories employ women over 25 on the production lines, so they have to make it into a white collar job by then.

And as few are well-educated this means learning computers or English on top of a 13-hour working day.
Self-help books not Confucian proverbs make sense of the world. White collar classes practice not calligraphy but the art of sitting, dressing, drinking tea and public speaking.

The neat segments that divide up the Chinese lunar year have been replaced with the Christmas rush and the summer season.

The girls often talk of leaving, but when they return home there is nothing for them.

Parents do not understand the city, and the girls are selective in what they say about their new lives.

Wealth brings them status and power within the family. At the lunar New Year, the girls give money to elderly relatives –  in the past older people gave to the young.

The girls have more choice about when and who they marry. But finding the right partner is a struggle.

They have high expectations of romance, but prostitution takes place on an industrial scale. One hotel employed 10,000 women as prostitutes.

Chang, a journalist on the Wall Street Journal, spent six years in China, and at least two of them researching this book and getting to know the young women.

She uses her own family story to illustrate modern Chinese history: the way the turmoil of the past century has tended to make Chinese people live in the present, blocking out the horrors of the past; and the way her grandfather and later her father ‘went out’.

The result provides a deep insight into the contradictions and complexities of modern Chinese life.

Seen through the eyes of the teenage migrants, Factory Girls shows us how China is making the sharp transitioin from the village, where everything is done collectively, to the city, where ‘I can only rely on myself’.

Protest will tell Tesco 'we won't work for free'

Story published on BlottR on February 18, 2012

Campaigners plan to protest outside an East London Tesco store on Monday after the firm advertised for a night-shift worker paying JSA plus expenses.

The ad, which appeared on the Jobcentre Plus website in East Anglia, provoked a flurry of protest yesterday.

The post was advertised as part of the government’s sector based work academies programme which, according to its publicity brochure, offers pre-employment training, relevant to your business or sector, a work experience placement and a guaranteed job interview.

The protest is being organised by the Waltham Forest Anti-Cuts Union and Youth Fight for Jobs.
A spokeswoman said: “More than two and a half million people are unemployed, more than a million of them young.

“The government and local councils, including in Waltham Forest, are cutting jobs left, right and centre.

“They say the private sector will come to the rescue but, despite still making huge profits, big companies refuse to hire more people.

“Instead, the government sends them unemployed people to work for free or risk losing their benefits.”
The protest will take place on Monday, February 20, 6pm outside Leytonstone Tesco, Gainsborough Road, E11.

Democratic members walk out of contraception hearing

Story published on the Women's Views on News website, Feburary 17, 2012

Two Democratic members of the US House of Representatives have walked out of a hearing about contraception in protest at the chairman’s refusal to allow a woman to testify
.
Democratic Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Eleanor Holmes Norton left a hearing of the House Oversight Committee, after the chairman, Republican Darrell Issa, refused to allow a female college student to testify.

The hearing is looking into a regulation introduced by the Obama administration, compelling employers and health insurers to provide contraceptive coverage.

The first batch of witnesses were all male religious leaders opposed to the new rule.

Democratic Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings requested that college student Sandra Fluke be allowed to put the case for greater coverage.

Issa said that, as a college student, Ms Fluke did not have the ‘appropriate credentials’ to testify in front of his hearing.

He added the hearing ‘was not about reproductive rights and contraception but about the Administration’s actions as they related to freedom of religion and conscience’.

Holmes Norton said she would not return, calling Issa’s chairmanship an ‘autocratic regime’.

Survey seeks UK women’s views on football

Story published on the Women's Views on News website, February 17, 2012

A football think-tank in England has launched a major online survey to find out what women think about the game, and ascertain their standing within it.

Football Insights, a newly-formed company which researches fans’ views, is inviting women to fill in an online questionnaire, seeking their opinions on everything from facilities for female supporters, sexism, coaching, television coverage and participation in the women’s game.

Founder Paul Goodwin, said: “Up until now no-one has undertaken broad reaching research into females’ attitudes and involvement in the game from grassroots to the elite levels.

“A comprehensive survey will provide valuable insight for everyone with an interest in the future of the game including the game’s authorities, clubs and sponsors.”

Last year a survey by Sport England called Active People found that 275,000 adult women played football, making the women’s game the third largest participation sport, behind men’s  football and men’s cricket.

Football Insight’s account director Scott Grant said there was no doubt the women’s game had grown, with magazines like She Kicks raising its profile.

“The new Women’s Super League was launched last year, it’s an important step to the women’s game becoming more professionalised.

“I watched the youth Football Scotland, under 17s Girls Cup Final and was really surprised by the competitiveness of these young girls,” he said.

He said the survey had so far received support from 11 league clubs, including Portsmouth and Derby County, but admitted it had sometimes proved difficult to get others interested. 

“A lot more are waiting to see what happens,” he said

Food=beauty, according to former soccer player

Story published on the Women's Views on News website on February 3, 2012

Beauty x is a short ebook, from the Eat Campaign, a Facebook-based network of ‘beauty ambassadors’ and ‘right to eat activists’, which uses pictures and experiences of celebrities to warn and educate young women about the dangers of under-eating.

The book starts with a letter by the author, Ranko Tutulugdzija, to a young woman called Kristen, who is suffering from an eating disorder.

Tutulugdzija explains the medical impact of not eating – anaemia, followed by oedema, when the face and eventually the whole body swell up with fluid as the kidneys, weakened by lack of food, are unable to dispose of waste properly
.
Food=beauty, he writes.

Tutulugdzij describes how he travelled to China to get treatment for the constant muscle pain and fatigue caused by over exercise and a protein-only diet, whilst on a college soccer scholarship.  He had no medical insurance, and taught English to get his visa.

He became very aware of how college girls in China, like young women all over the world, ate hardly anything.  They were losing their beauty, unlike the  older women he met, who at 60, looked more like 30.

He describes the psychological effects – fear, insomnia, panic attacks – operating in a kind of survival mode brought on by near starvation, and is concerned that many young women who present to doctors with these symptoms are prescribed anti-depressants, ignoring the real causes.

He warns against calorie counting, consuming ‘dead empty matter’  (foods full of processed white sugar), and eating just one type of food.

Unlike many nutritionists, he tells his readers not to worry about eating white rice or flour, as these are staples in countries like China.

The book is aimed not at those suffering severe anorexia, but at the millions of women and girls for whom under-eating is a way of life.

The campaign is clever in its use of social networking, celebrity and on-line activism to draw women away from dieting and the damage it can do, but does not move far enough away from the myth that beauty is all about being thin and looking young.

However, hopefully young women will follow the spirit, if not the letter, of his message.

Bread basket not black hole

Story published on  Women's Views on News, February 2, 2012


Rumana Hashem  is one of a group of campaigners successfully fighting plans by a British company to dig a massive open cast mine on prime agricultural land in north western


Bangladesh, which could displace nearly a quarter of a million people.


I spoke to her recently about the campaign and how she became involved.


Hashem first discovered in 2006 that Global Coal Management (GCM) planned to develop the mine, an area the size of Edinburgh, near the town of Phulbari in her native Bangladesh.


“I wanted to find out how many people would prosper and what the mine would be used for,” she said.


She researched both sides of the argument; first, the company analysts who said the mine would produce 15m tonnes of coal a year, contribute billions to the economy and help the country meet its energy needs. 


They said that 50,000 people would be displaced over the course of its 35 year lifespan and that measures would be taken to address water depletion, noise and pollution.  GCM would build a new town to house the displaced.


And then she spoke to opponents, like the International Accountability Project (IAP), which said the project would lead to disaster. 


It estimated that water levels would fall by 15-25m - a concern, as most local people use tube wells.


IAP claimed the project could damage the Sunderbans, a UN-protected mangrove forest, home to endangered species like the Royal Bengal tiger, as GCM planned to transport eight million tonnes of coal a year by barge, and build a reloading port just off the coast.


Eighty per cent of the coal would be exported.


An expert committee, established by the Bangladesh government in 2005, concluded the project broke laws and regulations prohibiting open cast mines of more than eight square kilometres and stipulating that licences should only be granted for a maximum of 10 years initially. 


In 1994, when the initial agreements were signed, tax on coal was 20 per cent, but in 1995 the government reduced this to six per cent, and GCM were granted an initial nine-year tax holiday.  No export duties would be paid.


The committee found that, given the number of leases and exploration licences held by GCM, and given the population density and predicted growth, the mine could displace up to 220,000 people.


It reported widespread local opposition, and was worried by claims that consultation forms had been printed in English, and believed some of the information put out by GCM to local communities was misleading.


Hashem travelled to Phulbari and the following day was interrogated by the Bangladesh


Rifles (BDR), an elite corps originally established to tackle crime and terrorism which, according to Human Rights Watch, has been responsible for the deaths of over 1,600 people since they were formed in 2004.


“This made me more worried about the situation.  I wanted to find out why people were not allowed to enter the region,” she said.


On August 26, 2006 Hashem attended an 80,000-strong demonstration organised by the National Committee for the Protection of Oil Gas Mineral Resources Power and Ports.


“The BDR were everywhere and they were the first to open fire. I believe they were advised by the company,” she said.


“They tried to stop people joining the demonstration and said there would be violence. 


“This gives us an indication that violence was being planned. 


“Local people told me that they were being intimidated and company agents warned them that there would be serious violence,” she said.


Three people were shot and 200 injured. 


Since then groups opposed to the project have complained of mass arrests of demonstrators, beatings and interrogation.


In 2007 a local National Committee leader, SM Nuruzuman, claimed he was arrested and tortured, and its general secretary, Professor Anu Muhammad, said he had received abusive messages and at least one death threat from GCM investors.


“The area around Phulbari is extremely fertile and densely populated,” he said.


“It is also one of the few regions in Bangladesh that is safe from flooding and other natural catastrophes, and therefore plays a key role for the food security of the entire country.


“The proposed ‘development’ project is merely a scheme to loot natural resources from a poor country for the rich.


“We will not allow GCM Resources to turn a land of food for the people into a black hole for corporate profit.” 


Hashem said she was called a ‘door mat’ and a ‘bad omen’ by an investor in 2010, whilst picketing a meeting in London, and received threatening phone calls.


In October 2010, Hashem said she discovered a fire at her home and she and her husband were forced to move out for six months while the house was rebuilt.


She believes the fire was started deliberately and was linked to her opposition to the project.


Some experts, like geologist Mark Muller, believe open cast mining is unnecessary in Phulbari, and claim alternatives like Coal Bed Methane (CBM) and Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), are cheaper, quicker, cleaner and almost as efficient as mined coal.


The Bangladesh government is beginning to listen.


On January 14, in a speech to the Institute of Engineers, the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, indicated she was against extracting coal in areas of high population density, and that it should be left in the ground for future generations while the country waited for new technology. 


But four days later Alamgir Kabir, chairman of the Bangladesh Power Development Board, invited tenders to help build four new coal-fired power plants.


He said the new plants would “initially utilise imported coal” but that “local coal will be utilised once the country starts extracting local coal significantly”.


On February 1, GCM reported a loss of £690,000 after tax in the last half of 2011, but chief executive Steve Bywater said the company had continued to meet with government officials to convince them of the project’s benefits.


“Because of the unique contribution that the project can make to the development of the electricity capacity of Bangladesh, we have confidence that it will ultimately be developed,” he said.


Professor Muhammad said the struggle was not yet over, but public opposition to open cast mining was so strong that any attempt to give a licence to GCM or any other company would be disastrous for the Bangladeshi government.  


“It is the people’s victory.  Nevertheless, for obvious reasons, we should remain vigilant and active,” he said.